Michel Mouffe

Michel Mouffe (1957, Brussels) explores the foundations of painting by challenging its limits. As he uses space to establish a dialogue, Mouffe’s paintings are not just flat. An iron frame underneath the canvas shapes the surface, giving the work a sculptural character.

Press Release

Michel Mouffe (1957, Brussels) explores the foundations of painting by challenging its limits. As he uses space to establish a dialogue, Mouffe’s paintings are not just flat. An iron frame underneath the canvas shapes the surface, giving the work a sculptural character. Through a contrast of surfaces, the background becomes the foreground. The subtle protuberances emerging from behind the canvas introduce the curve as a new element in the space of the canvas. The mystery of the abstract, rounded shape attracts the eye, and becomes the motif. A result of the integration of sculpture in the surface is that Mouffe’s works become an in-between. This duality of depth versus flatness is repeated in his use of paint. A lot of different colours can be distinguished in each work, but only from up close. The coloured surface is at once opaque and transparent due to the artist’s technique. Several layers of diluted paint are applied while the canvas is horizontal, making for a translucent surface that gives a fragility that relates to life, and that reminds us that Mouffe sees painting as a theatre for the condition humaine.'Michel Mouffe – Alphabet' is the artist's first comprehensive monograph. Conceived as the sequence of letters in the alphabet, this book gives an insight into Michel Mouffe’s body of work through a series of writings and conversations he shared with independent curator Joel Benzakin.